Gelli Plates!

bird printsI am so in love with my Gelli Plates.  They have brought me countless hours of wasted time while I figure out how to use them, but they are so addictive and fun!  Here are two of the latest prints that I’ve created.  I’ve been waiting all winter for my garden to grow so that I could try imprinting with leaves, but today I was too anxious to start and the leaves I picked were soggy and wet and just ended up making a mess, so I decided to cut out a bird stencil and use that as today’s theme.

The great thing about using a gelli plate is that it can provide countless ways to incorporate more texture on the surface of  paper. The gel plate is a soft and  silicon like texture.  In order to create a gelli  print you roll paint onto your plate and either imprint designs onto your plate, or leave patterns on your plate to create negative space when you pull the paint off onto your paper.  You can imprint things like, bubble wrap and stencils easily onto it without using much pressure.  And most of my prints are comprised of two or more layers of paint and designs.  Each time you roll paint onto your plate you can create one print and one ghost print, which is taken by removing the patterns you have left on your plate.    Sound complicated?  It can be!  For the background of these prints I mainly used corrugated cardboard.  If you are interested in finding out more about how to use these printing plates visit a demo here.

 

 

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Love To Dance!

Little Girls

I think my daughter has the dancing gene.  How else can I explain this obsession with her second hand ballet shoes and dress up tutus after growing up with a couple of brothers?  I do, in fact, sometimes feel bad that she doesn’t have many “girl” things.  I am hoping to skip over most of the unnecessary dolls and knick knacks for the more useful and already abundant chattels in our house, such as Lego.  Nevertheless, I am daily reminded that she is waiting to start dance lessons, and she is constantly showing me how she can do a plie and a twirl, while wearing her usual costume of some sort of fairy wings, and a tutu.  Thus, I have been inspired by my beautiful daughter to paint the latest series of Bealoo Kids prints titled “Love to Dance“.

 

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Pin It!

Bealoo Store

  Well, we finally have a “pin it” button on the Bealoo Store, although it is a little hard to find!  With the introduction of Pinterest Business Accounts, we have finally been able to attach a button to our shopping cart.  Look at the image above to see where it is located under each item [...]

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Eco Alphabet Art Print

EcoAlphabet

  Learning the alphabet is a part of the initiation of growing up.   Besides laying the foundation for phonics skills, it’s a fun way to spend time with your child.  In our house we always sang the alphabet while we brushed our kids’ teeth.  Displaying alphabet art is a great way to help with [...]

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A Little Pooh Bear

Woodland2

  Here is part two of my woodland animals collection.    There is something very calming and reflective about painting.  With three kids and a busy schedule it is often the only time that I really have to sit and contemplate things.  Perhaps, because of the Bear,  painting these made me think about Winnie the [...]

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Woodland Creatures for the Nursery

Woodland

  When I was a kid enjoyed reading the book “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” by Roald Dahl multiple times; it was one of my favourites!  And I recently saw the movie of the same name by Wes Anderson for the second time; it is also one of my favourites.   Foxes are cool and sleek and [...]

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Bubble Wrap?

MixedMedia

I love bubble wrap!   Every piece of art I’ve been creating lately has involved bubble wrap.  I find it really interesting to incorporate industrial materials into my art and the bubble wrap method is one of the simplest  to achieve. It consists of taking a piece of bubble wrap, applying paint to it,  and then [...]

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The Art of the Heart

HeartArt

  I’m going to tell you a little story about this new heart art of mine.   My  7 year old son, Adam, came home after school today with a friend and spent the afternoon coloring, which is a rarity.  Usually the after school activity is  something a little more wild like, chasing each other [...]

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Long Live Lego!

Lego

We are a Lego household.  We are Lego collectors.   When I think we can’t possibly store any more, a new set arrives for a birthday, or Christmas, but I would rather have 1000’s of pieces of Lego deposited around the house than a few crispy plastic superheroes, whose legs have fallen off after the [...]

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From the Bealoo Kids Archive

Little Boy With Dog Print

I dug out this picture the other day that I painted about 4 years ago.  In my mind I had this great idea of a series of paintings that I would create along this theme of a boy and his good friend.    The idea coincided with the arrival of our dog Jack into our [...]

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